A few weeks later Klimkov began to feel freer and more at ease. Every
morning, warmly and comfortably dressed, with a box of small wares on
his breast, he went to receive orders either at one of the cafés where
the spies gathered, or at a police office, or at the lodging of one of
the spies. The directions given him were simple and distinct.
"Go to such and such a house. Get acquainted with the servants. Find out
how the masters live."
If he succeeded in penetrating to the kitchen of the given house, he
would first try to bribe the servants by the cheap price of the goods
and by little presents. Then he would carefully question them about what
he had been ordered to learn. When he felt that the information gathered
was insufficient, he filled up the deficiency from his own head,
thinking it out according to the plan draughted for him by the old, fat,
and sensual Solovyov.
"These men in whom we are interested," Solovyov once said in a smug,
honey-sweet voice, "all have the same habits. They do not believe in
God, they do not go to church, they dress poorly, but they are civil in
their manners. They read many books, sit up late at night, often have
gatherings of guests in their lodgings, but drink very little wine, and
do not play cards. They speak about foreign countries, about systems of
government, workingmen's socialism and full liberty for the people. Also
about the poor masses, declaring it is necessary to stir them up to
revolt against our Czar, to kill out the entire administration, take
possession of the highest offices, and by means of socialism again
introduce serfdom, in which they will have complete liberty." The warm
voice of the spy broke off. He coughed and heaved a sentimental sigh.
"Liberty--everybody likes and wants to have liberty. But if you give me
liberty, maybe I'll become the first villain in the world. That's it. It
is impossible to give even a child full liberty. The Church Fathers,
God's saints, even they were subject to temptations of the flesh, and
they sinned in the very highest. People's lives are held together, not
by liberty but by fear. Submission to law is essential to man. But the
revolutionists reject law. They form two parties. One wants to make
quick work with the ministers and the faithful subjects of the Czar by
means of bombs, etc. The other party is willing to wait a little; first
they'll have a general uprising, then they'll kill off everybody at
once." Solovyov raised his eyes pensively, and paused an instant. "It is
difficult for us to comprehend their politics. Maybe they really
understand something. But for us everything they propose is an obnoxious
delusion. We fulfil the will of the Czar, the anointed sovereign of God.
And he is responsible for us before God, so we ought to do what he bids
us. In order to gain the confidence of the revolutionists you must
complain, 'Life is very hard for the poor, the police insult them, and
there's no sort of law.' Although they are people of villainous intent,
yet they are credulous, and you can always catch them with that bait.
Behave cannily toward their servants; for their servants aren't stupid,
either. Whenever necessary, reduce the price of your goods, so that they
will get used to you and value you. But guard against exciting
suspicion. They will begin to think, 'What is it? He sells very cheap,
and asks prying questions.' The best thing for you to do is to strike up
friendships. Take a little dainty, hot, full-breasted thing, and you'll
get all sorts of good information from her. She will sew shirts for you,
and invite you to spend the night with her, and she will find out
whatever you order her to. You know--a tiny, soft little mouse. You can
stretch your arm a long distance through a woman."
This round man, hairy-handed, thick-lipped, and pock-marked, spoke about
women more frequently than the others. He would lower his soft voice to
a whisper, his neck would perspire, his feet would shuffle uneasily, and
his eyes, minus eyebrows and eyelashes, would fill with warm, oily
moisture. Yevsey with his sharp scent observed that Solovyov always
smelt of hot, greasy, decayed meat.
In the chancery the spies had been spoken of as people who know
everything, hold everything in their hands, and have friends and helpers
everywhere. Though they could seize all the dangerous people at once,
they were not doing so simply because they did not wish to deprive
themselves of a position. On entering the Department of Safety everyone
swore an oath to pity nobody, neither father, mother, nor brother, nor
to speak a word to one another about the sacred and awful business which
they vowed they would serve all their lives.
Consequently Yevsey had expected to find sullen personalities. He had
pictured them as speaking little in words unintelligible to simple
people, as possessing the miraculous perspicacity of a sorcerer, able to
read a man's thoughts and divine all the secrets of his life.
Now from his sharp observation of them he clearly saw they were not
unusual, nor for him either worse or more dangerous than others. In
fact, they seemed to live in a more comradely fashion than was common.
They frankly spoke of their mistakes and failures, even laughed over
them. All without exception were equally fervent in swearing at their
superiors, though with varying degrees of malice.
Conscious of a close bond uniting them they were solicitous for one
another. When it happened that someone was late for a meeting or failed
to appear at all, there was a general sense of uneasiness about the
absentee, and Yevsey, Zarubin, or someone of the numerous group of
"novices," or "assistants" was sent to look for the lost man at another
gathering place.
A stranger observing them would have been instantly struck by the lack
of greed for money among the majority and the readiness to share money
with comrades who had gambled it away or squandered it in some other
fashion. They all loved games of hazard, took a childish interest in
card tricks, and envied the cleverness of the card-sharper.
They spoke to one another with ecstasy and acute envy of the revelries
of the officials, described in detail the bodies of the lewd women known
to them, and hotly discussed the various processes of the sexual
relation. Most of them were unmarried, almost all were young, and for
everyone of them a woman was something in the nature of whiskey--to give
him ease and lull him to sleep. Women brought them relief from the
anxiety of their dog's work. Almost all kept indecent photographs in
their pockets, and looked at them with greed while talking obscenities.
Such discussion roused in Yevsey a sharp, intoxicating curiosity,
sometimes incredulity and nausea. He soon came to know that some of the
spies practised pederasty and sodomy, and that very many were infected
with secret diseases. All of them drank much, mixing wine with beer, and
beer with cognac, in an effort to get drunk as quickly as possible.
Only a few of them put hot enthusiasm, the passion of the hunter, into
their work. These boasted of their skill, swelling with pride as they
described themselves as heroes. The majority, however, did their work
wearily, with an air of being bored.
Their talks about the people whom they hunted down like beasts were
seldom marked by the fierce hatred that boiled in Sasha's conversation
like a seething hot-spring. One who was different from the rest was
Melnikov, a heavy, hairy man with a thick, bellowing voice, who walked
with oddly bent neck and spoke little. His dark eyes were always
straining, as if in constant search. The man seemed to Yevsey ever to be
thinking of something terrible. Krasavin and Solovyov also contrasted
with the others, the one by his cold malice, the other by the complacent
satisfaction with which he spoke about fights, blood-shed, and women.
Among the youth the most noticeable was Yakov Zarubin, who was
constantly fidgetting about and constantly running up to the others with
questions. When he listened to the conversations about the
revolutionists he knitted his brows in anger and jotted down notes in
his little note-book. He tried to be of service to all the important
spies, though it was evident that no one liked him and that his book was
regarded with suspicion.
The larger number spoke indifferently about the revolutionists,
sometimes denouncing them as incomprehensible men of whom they were
sick, sometimes referring to them in fun as to amusing cranks.
Occasionally, too, they spoke in anger as one speaks of a child who
deserves punishment for impudence. Yevsey began to imagine that all the
revolutionists were empty people who were not serious, and did not
themselves know what they wanted, but merely brought disturbance and
disorder into life.
Once Yevsey asked Piotr:
"There, you said the revolutionists are being bribed by the Germans, and
now they say differently."
"What do you mean by 'differently?'" Piotr demanded angrily.
"That they are poor and stupid, and nobody says anything about the
Germans."
"Go to the devil, brother! Isn't it all the same to you? Do what you are
told to do. Your color is the diamond, and you go with diamonds."
Matters of business were discussed in a lazy, unwilling way, and "You
don't understand anything, brother," was a common rejoinder of one spy
to another.
"And you?" would be the counter-retort.
"I keep quiet."
Klimkov tried to keep as far away as possible from Sasha. The ominous
face of the sick man frightened him, and the smell of iodoform and the
snuffling, cantankerous voice disgusted him.
"Villains!" cried Sasha swearing at the officials. "They are given
millions, and toss us pennies. They squander hundreds of thousands on
women and on various genteel folk, who, they want us to believe, work
for the good of society. But it's not the gentry that make
revolutions--you must know that, idiots,--the revolution grows
underneath, in the ground, among the people. Give me five millions, and
in one month I'll lift the revolution up above ground into the street.
I'll carry it out of the dark corners into the light of day. Then--choke
it!"
Sasha always contrived horrible schemes for the extermination of the
noxious people. While devising them he stamped his feet, extended his
trembling arms, and tore the air with his yellow fingers, while his face
turned leaden, his red eyes grew strangely dim, and the spittle spurted
from his mouth.
All, it was evident, looked upon him with aversion and feared him,
though they were anxious to conceal the repulsion produced by his
disease. Maklakov alone calmly avoided close intercourse with the sick
man. He did not even give him his hand in greeting. Sasha, in his turn,
who ridiculed everybody, who swore at all his comrades, setting them
down as fools, plainly put Maklakov in a category by himself. He was
always serious in his intercourse with the spy, and apparently spoke to
him with greater will than to the rest. He did not abuse him even behind
his back.
Once when Maklakov had walked out without, as usual, taking leave of
him, he cried:
"The nobleman is squeamish. He doesn't want to come near me. He has the
right to be, the devil take him! His ancestors lived in lofty rooms,
they breathed rarefied air, ate healthful food, wore clean
undergarments. He, too, for that matter. But I am a muzhik. I was born
and brought up like an animal, in filth, among lice, on coarse black
bread made of unbolted meal. His blood is better than mine, yes, indeed,
both the blood and the brain; and the brain is the soul." After a pause
he added in a lower voice, gloomily, without ridicule, "Idiots and
impostors speak of the equality of man. The aristocrat preaches equality
because he is an impudent scoundrel, and can't do anything himself. So
of course he says, 'you are just as good a man as I am. Act so that I
shall be able to live better.' This is the theory of equality."
Sasha's talks did not evoke a response from the other spies. They failed
to be moved by his excitement, and listened to his growling in
indifferent silence. He received sulky support, however, from one, the
large Melnikov, who acted as a detective among workingmen.
"Yes," Melnikov would say, "they are all deceivers," and nod his dark
unkempt head in confirmation while vigorously clenching his hairy fist.
"They ought to be killed, as the muzhiks kill horse thieves," screamed
Sasha.
"To kill may be a little too much, but sometimes it would be delicious
to give a gentleman a box on the ear," said Chashin, a celebrated
billiard player, curly-haired, thin, and sharp-nosed. "Let's take this
example. About a week ago I was playing in Kononov's hotel with a
gentleman. I saw his face was familiar to me, but all chickens have
feathers. He stared at me in his turn. 'Well,' thinks I, 'look. I don't
change color.' I fixed him for three rubles and half a dozen beers, and
while we were drinking he suddenly rose, and said, 'I recognize you. You
are a spy. When I was in the university,' he said, 'thanks to you,' he
said, 'I had to stick in prison four months. You are,' he said, 'a
scoundrel.' At first I was frightened, but soon the insult gnawed at my
heart. 'You sat in prison not at all thanks to me, but to your politics.
And your politics do not concern me personally. But let me tell you that
on your account I had to run about day and night hunting you in all
sorts of weather. I had to stick in the hospital thirteen days.' That's
the truth. The idea for him to jump on me! The pig, he ate himself fat
as a priest, wore a gold watch, and had a diamond pin stuck in his tie."
Akim Grokhotov, a handsome fellow, with a face mobile as an actor's
observed:
"I know men like that, too. When they are young, they walk on their
heads; when the serious years come, they stay at home peacefully with
their wives, and for the sake of a livelihood are even ready to enter
our Department of Safety. The law of nature."
"Among them are some who can't do anything besides revolutionary work.
Those are the most dangerous," said Melnikov.
"Yes, yes," shot from Krasavin, who greedily rolled his oblique eyes.
Once Piotr lost a great deal in cards. He asked in a wearied,
exasperated tone:
"When will this dog's life of ours end?"
Solovyov looked at him, and chewed his thick lips.
"We are not called upon to judge of such matters. Our business is
simple. All we have to do is to take note of a certain face pointed out
by the officials, or to find it ourselves, gather information, make
observations, give a report to the authorities, and let them do as they
please. For all we care they may flay people alive. Politics do not
concern us. Once there was an agent in our Department, Grisha Sokovnin,
who also thought about such things, and ended his life in a prison
hospital where he died of consumption."
Oftenest the conversation took some such course as the following:
Viekov, a wig-maker, always gaily and fashionably dressed, a modest,
quiet person, announced:
"Three fellows were arrested yesterday."
"Great news!" someone responded indifferently.
But Viekov whether or no would tell his comrades all he knew. A spark of
quiet stubbornness flared up in his small eyes as he continued in an
inquisitive tone:
"The gentlemen revolutionists, it seems, are again hatching plots on
Nikitskaya Street--great goings-on."
"Fools! All the janitors there are old hands in the service."
"Much help they are, the janitors!"
"Hmm, yes, indeed."
"However," said Viekov cautiously, "a janitor can be bribed."
"And you, too. Every man can be bribed--a mere matter of price."
"Did you hear, boys, Siekachev won seven hundred rubles in cards
yesterday."
"How he smuggles the cards!"
"Yes, yes. He's no sharper, but a young wizard."
Viekov looked around, smiled in embarrassment, then silently and
carefully smoothed his clothes.
"A new proclamation has appeared," he announced another time.
"There are lots of proclamations. The devil knows which of them is new."
"There's a great deal of evil in them."
"Did you read it?"
"No. Filip Filippovich says there's a new one, and he's mad."
"The authorities are always mad. Such is the law of nature," remarked
Grokhotov with a smile.
"Who reads those proclamations?"
"They're read all right--very much so."
"Well, what of it? I have read them, too, yet I didn't turn black. I
remained what I was, a red-haired fellow. It's not a matter of
proclamations, it's a matter of bombs."
"Of course."
"A proclamation doesn't explode."
Evidently, however, the spies did not like to speak of bombs, for each
time they were mentioned, all made a strenuous effort to change the
subject.
"Forty thousand dollars' worth of gold articles were stolen in Kazan."
"There's something for you!"
"Forty thousand! Whew!"
"Did they catch the thieves?" someone asked in great excitement.
"They'll get caught," prophesied another sorrowfully.
"Well, before that happens they'll have a good time."
A mist of envy enveloped the spies, who sank in dreams of revelries, of
big stakes, and costly women.
Melnikov was more interested than the others in the course of the war.
Often he asked Maklakov, who read the newspapers carefully:
"Are they still licking us?"
"They are."
"But what's the cause?" Melnikov exclaimed in perplexity, rolling his
eyes. "Aren't there people enough, or what?"
"Not enough sense," Maklakov retorted drily.
"The workingmen are dissatisfied. They do not understand. They say the
generals have been bribed."
"That's certainly true," Krasavin broke in. "None of them are
Russians,"--he uttered an ugly oath--"what's our blood to them?"
"Blood is cheap," said Solovyov, and smiled strangely.
As a rule the spies spoke of the war unwillingly, as if constrained in
one another's presence, and afraid of uttering some dangerous word. On
the day of a defeat they all drank more whiskey than usual, and having
gotten drunk quarreled over trifles.
On such days Yevsey trying to avoid possible brawls made his escape
unnoticed to his empty room, and there thought about the life of the
spies. All of them--and there were many, their numbers constantly
increasing--all of them seemed unhappy. They were all solitary, and he
pitied them with his colorless pity. Nevertheless he liked to be among
them and listen to their talk.
At the meetings Sasha boiled over and swore:
"Monstrosities! You understand nothing. You can't understand the
significance of the business. Monstrosities!"
In answer some smiled deprecatingly, others maintained sullen silence.
"For forty rubles a month you can't be expected to understand very
much," one would sometimes mutter.
"You ought to be wiped off the face of the earth," shrieked Sasha.
Klimkov began to dislike Sasha more and more, strengthened in his
ill-will by the fact that nobody else cared for the diseased man.
Many of the spies were actually sick from the constant dread of attacks
and death. Fear drove some, as it had Yelizar Titov, into an insane
asylum.
"I was playing in the club yesterday," said Piotr, in a disconcerted
tone, "when I felt something pressing on the nape of my neck and a cold
shiver running up and down my back-bone. I looked around. There in the
corner stood a tall man looking at me as if he were measuring me inch by
inch. I could not play. I rose from the table, and I saw him move. I
backed out, and ran down the stairs into the yard and out into the
street. I took a cab, sat in it sidewise, and looked back. Suddenly the
man appeared from somewhere in front of me, and crossed the street under
the horse's very nose. Maybe it wasn't he. But in such a case you can't
think. How I yelled! He stopped, and I jumped out of the cab, and off I
went at a gallop, the cabman after me. Well, how I did run, the devil
take it!"
"Such things happen," said Grokhotov, smiling. "I once hid myself for a
similar reason in the yard. But it was still more horrible there, so I
climbed up to a roof, and sat there behind the chimney until daybreak. A
man must guard himself against another man. Such is the law of nature."
Krasavin once entered pale and sweating with staring eyes.
"They were following me," he announced gloomily, pressing his temples.
"Who?"
"They."
Solovyov endeavored to calm him.
"Lots of people walk the streets, Gavrilo. What's that to you?"
"I could tell by the way they walked they were after me."
For more than two weeks Yevsey did not see Krasavin.
The spies treated Klimkov good-naturedly, and their occasional laughter
at his expense did not offend him, for when he was grieved over his
mistakes, they comforted him:
"You'll get used to the work."
He was puzzled as to when the spies did their work, and tried to
unriddle the problem. They seemed to pass the greater part of their time
in the cafés, sending novices and such insignificant fellows as himself
out for observations.
He knew that besides all the spies with whom he was acquainted there
were still others, desperate, fearless men, who mingled with the
revolutionists, and were known by the name of provocators. There were
only a few such men, but these few did most of the work, and directed it
entirely. The authorities prized them very highly, while the street
spies, envious of them, were unanimous in their dislike of the
provocators because of their haughtiness.
Once in the street Grokhotov pointed out a provocator to Yevsey.
"Look, Klimkov, quick!"
A tall sturdy man was walking along the pavement. His fair hair combed
back fell down beautifully from under his hat to his shoulders. His face
was large and handsome, his mustache luxuriant. His soberly clad person
produced the impression of that of an important, well-fed gentleman of
the nobility.
"You see what a fellow?" said Grokhotov with pride. "Fine, isn't he? Our
guard. He delivered up twenty men of the bomb. He helped them make the
bombs himself. They wanted to blow up a minister. He taught them, then
delivered them up. Clever piece of business, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Yevsey, amazed at the man's stately appearance so unlike
that of the busy, bustling street spies.
"That's the kind they are, the real ones," said Grokhotov. "Why, he
would do for a minister; he has the face and figure for it. And we--what
are we? Poverty-stricken dependents upon a hungry nobleman."
Yevsey sighed. The magnificent spy aroused his envy.
Ready to serve anybody and everybody for a good look or a kind word, he
ran about the city obediently, searched, questioned, and informed. If he
succeeded in pleasing, he rejoiced sincerely, and grew in his own
estimation. He worked much, made himself very tired, and had no time to
think.
Maklakov, reserved and serious, seemed better and purer to Yevsey than
any person he had met up to that time. He always wanted to ask him about
something, and tell him about himself--such an attractive and engaging
face did this young spy have.
Once Yevsey actually put a question to him:
"Timofey Vesilyevich, how much do the revolutionists receive a month?"
A light shadow passed over Maklakov's bright eyes.
"You are talking nonsense," he answered, not in a loud voice, but
angrily.
The days passed quickly, in a constant stir, one just like the other. At
times Yevsey felt they would file on in the same way far into the
future--vari-colored, boisterous, filled with the talks now become
familiar to him and with the running about to which he had already grown
accustomed. This thought enfolded his heart in cold tedium, his body in
enfeebling languor. Everything within and without became empty. Klimkov
seemed to be sliding down into a bottomless pit.